Fire rush, p.10
Fire Rush, page 10
‘If I were you, Yamaye, I’d keep my batty quiet for now. People ain’t happy about Dub Steppaz closing.’
I ask how the police knew where to find Asase.
‘Informer, who else,’ he says.
‘One of us?’ I ask.
‘Jah know,’ he says.
I try to keep him talking, hoping he’ll change his tone. I say that it’s a good thing they didn’t find Lego; he must have a dread hiding place in the Crypt.
‘Listen nuh, best not to chat these things on Babylon’s phone,’ he says and he hangs up.
I put the handset in its cradle and place my hand on top of it. Wait for it to ring, Bongo Natty on the other end of the line saying he’s sorry, he was too harsh; me and him are still friends. The silence cuts into me. I pace my room, but the strength goes out of my legs. I double up, cross my arms over my stomach, rock back and forth.
At lunchtime, I call Rumer and she says she’s well enough for visitors. She had a bad asthma attack on New Year’s Day that turned into flu. The dry, cold air of winter always gets to her. I haven’t seen her since everything happened. We spoke twice on the phone, but not long enough to get inna it.
Rumer’s wearing a navy dressing gown, the cord hanging by her sides. Her blonde roots are showing through the black. Her face is thinner and waxy grey.
I follow her into the living room. We’re on the third floor and from the window, looking down, I can see the black-wet streets and people walking around.
She makes mugs of coffee and stirs in brandy. We sit on the floor like we always do. The threadbare carpet stinks of cigarette ash and beer.
‘This is all we need,’ Rumer says.
I tell her Eustace is in hospital and Bongo Natty said we should lay low.
‘We’re gonna feel the heat from everyone,’ she says. She pours more brandy into her mug and puts the bottle on the floor between us.
‘We don’t know everything yet,’ I say.
‘You sure you didn’t see nuth’n?’ she asks.
I tell her about Crab Man shaking and pushing Asase earlier that night and how she seemed to be hurt, but insisted on going to the Crypt.
‘Hurt bad?’ Rumer asks.
I nod. ‘She didn’t look good.’
‘Then why was she brucking her neck to get to the Crypt?’ She pulls coils of hair from her eyes. ‘You holding out on me?’
I bring the mug to my face and stare at the stray coffee granules bobbing on the surface. I don’t want to be separated from Rumer by secrets. Need to talk about what this means for us.
I tell her about Asase and Eustace. She looks at me, red blotches burbling and spreading across her neck. She picks up her inhaler and breathes out, then presses down on the canister.
‘You OK?’ I ask her.
She takes the inhaler out of her mouth and puts her hand on my shoulder and waits before sucking in more medication. ‘Asase is trouble,’ she says. Her voice is strained.
I link my arm through hers and she pulls me to her, says she’s OK.
‘The police came to my yard,’ I say. ‘Questioned me.’
‘You know her better than anyone. You’re as good as family.’
I sip the coffee and the brandy leaves a trail of fire in my throat. A thin layer of condensation spreads across the windows.
‘We’ve let her get away with plenty,’ Rumer says. ‘Asase’s hard. Asase’s brave. Asase’s got that . . . that energy. Cha, don’t know what to say.’ She bursts out crying. Her chest is still tight, and she starts coughing and gasping. She puts her hands over her face. ‘I love her,’ she says. ‘I love that woman so bad it burns.’
I pull her hands away and look into her eyes. ‘It’s OK, Rumer, I think I’ve always known.’
She stops crying, heaving dry, racking breaths.
We hold each other and I go limp in her arms, feel the weight of secrets dropping away.
* * *
*
It is Bongo Natty who calls me the week after to say that Rumer has left town. His tone is still hard. He says he saw her at the station early Wednesday morning carrying a brown patent-leather suitcase, wearing her long military-style coat and red, gold and green knitted hat. She told him she was going to Ireland for some country air. Back to a mother and father who dote on their five sons. Maybe to marry the cousin her parents want her to. Try to be something she can never be. She told Bongo Natty the smoke was gonna kill her if she didn’t leave. His voice an electromagnetic hiss, as he says I should think about checking out of the area too.
And I understand why Rumer doesn’t want to be the first in this ancient town. And why she didn’t want to say goodbye. But it’s too much, this expanding isolation feels like a compression against my chest.
I’m afraid of ending up like the other solitary people on the estate. Caught in contractions of the past, trying to find their futures.
* * *
*
Riots in Bristol take us into spring. Black people kicking off against harassment by the police. Poor people wanting more food and heat.
And we burn ourselves, night into day, on dub riddims in the Crypt, praying Babylon won’t take our world away. Father Mullaney says the police are trying to close down the dub parties in the Crypt, but Bongo Natty and his lawyers are fighting to keep it open. I’m constantly uneasy, carrying the feeling that I’m still being followed, although I haven’t seen the man for a while.
We organise silent demonstrations for Moose outside police stations across London in the evenings, holding red church candles, swaying, humming like an oncoming storm.
His murder follows me wherever I go. At night, I dream of him in yellow limestone caves, his voice reverbing dread, and I think this is when Asase could have done good with her energy and fearlessness. But maybe in all revolutions there are rebels who turn on each other and themselves.
* * *
*
Asase’s case goes to court in the middle of summer. I sit two rows from the back of the public gallery. Dark, wood-panelled walls, grain-patterned stories of our uprooted past. Dead air. The kinda place that makes it difficult to believe in an afterlife. Black people walk into the gallery with rigid, immobile features. They’ve switched faces, like vinyl flipped to B-side, voiceless.
The gallery is on one side of the room, looking across to the jury on the other. Asase is at the back with a prison officer. She’s staring straight ahead in the direction of the barristers and judge in front of her. I’m looking at her, wanting to connect, but she won’t look at me. The hollow acoustics of the room match the emptiness inside me.
* * *
*
The white-haired barristers are MCs preparing for a sound-system clash, polishing their records until they gleam, sharpening their needles before they let their versions spin. The judge chatting about how things are gonna run. There’s a bored, impatient expression on Asase’s face. She’s sitting upright in the dock, her body still powerful. Nature must have built her that way, knowing she’d have to fight and run. Oraca, who is near the front of the public gallery, turns and stares at me. We smile. That’s when Asase finally looks at me, her eyes wavelengths of silence.
I nod. And I can see now that Asase was my friend because I didn’t want her as an enemy. I’d been in a prison of my own making.
Love her. Hate her. Love her. Hate her.
Right now, I hate her for what she did to Eustace. And yet. The nerves in my body twisting and turning like mistuned notes.
Eustace’s parents and Loreen are sitting in the front row. His mother is leaning against her husband’s shoulder. Eustace isn’t with them, can’t see him anywhere. I pray they don’t turn to look at me.
The barrister for the prosecution, Mr Lyons, stands up.
‘Your Honour, I would like to call the prosecution’s first witness, Mr Eustace Frankson.’
There’s whispering at the front of the public gallery and the usher takes a note from Loreen and gives it to Mr Lyons.
Mr Lyons speaks to the judge, says that he has a doctor’s note, Mr Frankson is unwell. They talk for a while and the Judge says the case will continue. ‘I’d like to call Mr Nathaniel Bailey to the witness stand,’ Mr Lyons says. People up front whispering. Probably wondering the same thing as me; whether Eustace is still recovering or just doesn’t want to testify against Asase.
The judge asks for silence.
Bongo Natty walks up to the stand wearing an African print shirt and matching tie, his locks piled into a red, gold and green knitted hat. He takes the Bible from the usher. Inhales a large breath, like a trumpeter about to blow his horn.
‘I swear by Jah Rastafari, Conquering Lion of Judah, that the evidence I give shall be the truth, the whole truth and nuth’n but the truth.’
The judge glances up from his papers, looks at the barrister and blinks several times.
Mr Lyons asks Bongo Natty to tell the court where he was on the night of 31 December 1979 and what he saw.
Bongo Natty looks around at the people in the public gallery, his jaw muscles flexed for fight or flight.
‘Mr Bailey, if you please,’ Mr Lyons says.
Bongo Natty clears his throat a couple of times. ‘It was snowing,’ he says. ‘The people was inside. I was at the table, with my crew. We were, yuh know, smoking, drinking, niceing up the place.’
‘Can you describe the layout for the court?’ Mr Lyons asks.
‘Yuh step inna the door at the side of the church on to a landing, a gallery where the set-up was. The table and everything. Metal stairs went down inna the Crypt. Asase and Eustace came up from the Crypt. They went past me, outside. She looked vehexx.’
‘Vehexx?’ Mr Lyons asks.
Someone in the gallery laughs.
‘Yes, angry,’ Bongo Natty says.
‘Do you mean vexed?’ Mr Lyons asks.
‘Yes. Swell up. Plenty people were upstairs. She had to shuub to get out. They didn’t shut the door behind them. Cold air was blowing in. I went to close it. Heard cussing and things. Looked out. My man – Eustace – was on the floor. Asase was holding a knife.’ Bongo Natty turns to the judge and raises his empty hands.
Cross-fading whispers from the front and back of the courtroom.
The palms of my hands are hot, sweaty. I wonder if it coulda been me. If Asase could have turned on me one day. I look at her but she’s looking down at her hands.
‘What did you do then?’ Mr Lyons asks.
‘I ran towards them,’ Bongo Natty says. ‘She likked concrete.’
‘I’m sorry? Licked concrete?’
Someone in the gallery shouts, ‘Running, iyah, running.’
The judge orders the man to be taken out.
Bongo Natty continues: ‘Yes, running fast. Hitting the pavement.’
‘Yes, yes, I see,’ Mr Lyons says. ‘Were there other people nearby?’
‘Yes, stepping ’pon the street, going towards the station.’
Mr Lyons asks Bongo Natty a few more questions about his relationship with Asase and Eustace. Then he calls Loreen, Eustace’s wife.
It’s stuffy with the smell of people’s warm bodies and breath. Mr Lyons blows his nose. His selector rummages in files, pulling out papers and giving them to him.
Loreen takes the Bible and makes an oath to God Almighty. She’s older than Eustace, in her late forties, tall, glow-dark coppery skin. Wearing a navy dress with a white collar, a short silver Ethiopian cross necklace. She stands with her chin out. Mr Lyons takes off his glasses, holds the silence like an MC. Puts his glasses back on, turns and looks at the jury while addressing Loreen.
‘This will be difficult. We’ll go at your pace. Can you tell us about your husband, Eustace Frankson?’
Loreen faces the jury. Their eyes flicker. She places her right hand on the cross at her throat. ‘He is a good father,’ she says. ‘Too soft with the children.’ Her voice is deep, slow and heavy. ‘He put so much into the record shop.’ She stops, tugs at the cross. ‘I won’t let him run that place any more.’
‘This is obviously upsetting for you,’ Mr Lyons says.
‘Is all right. I mus’ do this,’ she says. ‘Eustace gave too much time. Helping any and anybody who came off the street.’
‘Loreen, please tell the court what kind of help,’ Mr Lyons says.
‘The youth don’t have anything. Eustace let them stay in the shop. Gave them food. Money.’
Eustace’s mother lets out a muted wail. Her husband pulls her head to his chest and quietens her.
‘He always told the youth to walk away from trouble,’ Loreen says.
‘Were you aware of any relationship between your husband and the defendant?’ Mr Lyons asks.
‘Relationship?’ Loreen takes her hand off the cross. ‘Eustace doesn’t run up and down with other women. He’s a good husband. That woman was chasing him. She is slack!’
I stare at Asase. Her expression hardens, a below-surface burning.
Loreen slow-mo cuts her eyes in Asase’s direction. ‘Eustace is too trusting.’
Asase stares ahead. Her jaw twitches. Silence except for the rustling of the barristers’ gowns. And the sound of the defence barrister going through his files, like someone flicking through history’s dusty papers. Lost truths. Radioactive decay.
‘But he did go to late-night clubs like the Crypt?’ Mr Lyons asks.
‘Music is his business, his life,’ she says. She turns to the judge as if she’s speaking to him personally. Arms folded across her chest. ‘It nearly killed him!’
Wood-darkness closes in. Guilt, rage, grief and love explode inside me and I’m thinking of Moose and how Eustace almost died. I’m crying, and someone’s arm is around, the other arm covering my mouth with their hand, telling me to keep it down. It’s Junior, the young man who worked at Dub Steppaz.
He gives me a tissue and I’m wiping my eyes as Mr Lyons says he has no further questions.
Loreen is leaving the witness stand as someone starts shouting from the back of the courtroom, just behind me.
‘Tek me, Your Honour!’
I turn and see Hezekiah holding up his arms, his wrists locked together as if he’s cuffed.
‘This yah is my crime as a father. Me daughter innocent.’
He starts to run, darting between the bench where Asase is sitting, past the jury, the barristers’ and the solicitors. Asase is looking at him with disgust and turns her head away. The usher and clerk run towards him as he heads for the judge. They try to hold him back, but he’s pushing and shoving. They manage to wrestle him to the ground and a policeman cuffs him.
People in the gallery are calling out. Some are saying leave the old man alone; some are saying throw him in the dock with his daughter.
‘Order, order!’ shouts the judge.
The policeman takes Hezekiah out of court and the judge calls for a recess.
There are cracks in the air now; people poised like springs. Whatever Hezekiah was trying to do has backfired. Eustace’s friends are staring at me, kissing their teeth. There’s heat in my face and my throat is tightening. People in the gallery are huddling into groups, talking in loud voices. I leave the courtroom quick-time. Run down the corridors and out into daylight. Wanting to likk concrete, get as far away as I can from this place. From everyone.
I catch a taxi to the Dead Water area. Searching for sound imprints of Moose. Samples from the past, alive with the now. Entanglement. I’ll be OK if I can hear again that one gospel-swaying note that brings something of him back.
There are lights inside the old cottages, grey clouds rising from factories in the distance. I remember the rare-groove women in their floaty dresses swaying, Moose’s favourite song in my head. I sit on a bench on the towpath. I take his mahogany ring off my finger, hold it up to the light and look through it like a portal.
I stay that way for hours, watching the last of the summer light skimming the water, slipping further and further away into the tunnel.
* * *
*
Coulda pushed myself up with other people. Maybe Cynthia, who runs the community centre – a hall with a snooker table, some battered chairs and ripped cushions with foam spilling out. Or Georgia, a young mother with a two-year-old girl who lives in the flat next door. She’s always begging my company because she’s trapped in her yard day in, day out, no money to do anything. But I keep myself to myself. When Irving’s gone to work, I light up the flat with fiyah dub. Leave my body. Speak to the dead. Hover in their world. Try not to think about Asase and what I know. Afraid I might be called to the witness stand and break down under questioning.
Herbert calls on Saturday morning, says he’s coming round. Irving’s at the garage. It’s the day after the inquest into Moose’s death. Nile had tried to persuade me to go with him, but I didn’t. Couldn’t bear the thought of looking at the policemen flipping through notebooks, spinning their version of truth.
‘I need coffee,’ Herbert says as he walks in.
He’s wearing a black T-shirt and grey Farah trousers, his khaki messenger bag hanging on one shoulder. For once, his Afro isn’t shaped; it’s like an explosion of electrodes. The muscles round his jaw are tensed.
He follows me into the kitchen and sits down at the table, facing the small window where light and a late-summer breeze blows in, disturbing the stale smell of Irving’s tobacco smoke. I mix milk and coffee granules, pour water and stir anti-clockwise. Backwards spinning time.
‘Sit down, Yamaye,’ Herbert says. His voice is remote, restrained.
I put the mugs on the table, sit opposite him.
He clears his throat. The murmur of the radio comes from the front room.
‘Eight to two majority,’ he says. ‘Lawful killing by the police.’ His eyes are steady, rooted.
I ask how the police knew where to find Asase.
‘Informer, who else,’ he says.
‘One of us?’ I ask.
‘Jah know,’ he says.
I try to keep him talking, hoping he’ll change his tone. I say that it’s a good thing they didn’t find Lego; he must have a dread hiding place in the Crypt.
‘Listen nuh, best not to chat these things on Babylon’s phone,’ he says and he hangs up.
I put the handset in its cradle and place my hand on top of it. Wait for it to ring, Bongo Natty on the other end of the line saying he’s sorry, he was too harsh; me and him are still friends. The silence cuts into me. I pace my room, but the strength goes out of my legs. I double up, cross my arms over my stomach, rock back and forth.
At lunchtime, I call Rumer and she says she’s well enough for visitors. She had a bad asthma attack on New Year’s Day that turned into flu. The dry, cold air of winter always gets to her. I haven’t seen her since everything happened. We spoke twice on the phone, but not long enough to get inna it.
Rumer’s wearing a navy dressing gown, the cord hanging by her sides. Her blonde roots are showing through the black. Her face is thinner and waxy grey.
I follow her into the living room. We’re on the third floor and from the window, looking down, I can see the black-wet streets and people walking around.
She makes mugs of coffee and stirs in brandy. We sit on the floor like we always do. The threadbare carpet stinks of cigarette ash and beer.
‘This is all we need,’ Rumer says.
I tell her Eustace is in hospital and Bongo Natty said we should lay low.
‘We’re gonna feel the heat from everyone,’ she says. She pours more brandy into her mug and puts the bottle on the floor between us.
‘We don’t know everything yet,’ I say.
‘You sure you didn’t see nuth’n?’ she asks.
I tell her about Crab Man shaking and pushing Asase earlier that night and how she seemed to be hurt, but insisted on going to the Crypt.
‘Hurt bad?’ Rumer asks.
I nod. ‘She didn’t look good.’
‘Then why was she brucking her neck to get to the Crypt?’ She pulls coils of hair from her eyes. ‘You holding out on me?’
I bring the mug to my face and stare at the stray coffee granules bobbing on the surface. I don’t want to be separated from Rumer by secrets. Need to talk about what this means for us.
I tell her about Asase and Eustace. She looks at me, red blotches burbling and spreading across her neck. She picks up her inhaler and breathes out, then presses down on the canister.
‘You OK?’ I ask her.
She takes the inhaler out of her mouth and puts her hand on my shoulder and waits before sucking in more medication. ‘Asase is trouble,’ she says. Her voice is strained.
I link my arm through hers and she pulls me to her, says she’s OK.
‘The police came to my yard,’ I say. ‘Questioned me.’
‘You know her better than anyone. You’re as good as family.’
I sip the coffee and the brandy leaves a trail of fire in my throat. A thin layer of condensation spreads across the windows.
‘We’ve let her get away with plenty,’ Rumer says. ‘Asase’s hard. Asase’s brave. Asase’s got that . . . that energy. Cha, don’t know what to say.’ She bursts out crying. Her chest is still tight, and she starts coughing and gasping. She puts her hands over her face. ‘I love her,’ she says. ‘I love that woman so bad it burns.’
I pull her hands away and look into her eyes. ‘It’s OK, Rumer, I think I’ve always known.’
She stops crying, heaving dry, racking breaths.
We hold each other and I go limp in her arms, feel the weight of secrets dropping away.
* * *
*
It is Bongo Natty who calls me the week after to say that Rumer has left town. His tone is still hard. He says he saw her at the station early Wednesday morning carrying a brown patent-leather suitcase, wearing her long military-style coat and red, gold and green knitted hat. She told him she was going to Ireland for some country air. Back to a mother and father who dote on their five sons. Maybe to marry the cousin her parents want her to. Try to be something she can never be. She told Bongo Natty the smoke was gonna kill her if she didn’t leave. His voice an electromagnetic hiss, as he says I should think about checking out of the area too.
And I understand why Rumer doesn’t want to be the first in this ancient town. And why she didn’t want to say goodbye. But it’s too much, this expanding isolation feels like a compression against my chest.
I’m afraid of ending up like the other solitary people on the estate. Caught in contractions of the past, trying to find their futures.
* * *
*
Riots in Bristol take us into spring. Black people kicking off against harassment by the police. Poor people wanting more food and heat.
And we burn ourselves, night into day, on dub riddims in the Crypt, praying Babylon won’t take our world away. Father Mullaney says the police are trying to close down the dub parties in the Crypt, but Bongo Natty and his lawyers are fighting to keep it open. I’m constantly uneasy, carrying the feeling that I’m still being followed, although I haven’t seen the man for a while.
We organise silent demonstrations for Moose outside police stations across London in the evenings, holding red church candles, swaying, humming like an oncoming storm.
His murder follows me wherever I go. At night, I dream of him in yellow limestone caves, his voice reverbing dread, and I think this is when Asase could have done good with her energy and fearlessness. But maybe in all revolutions there are rebels who turn on each other and themselves.
* * *
*
Asase’s case goes to court in the middle of summer. I sit two rows from the back of the public gallery. Dark, wood-panelled walls, grain-patterned stories of our uprooted past. Dead air. The kinda place that makes it difficult to believe in an afterlife. Black people walk into the gallery with rigid, immobile features. They’ve switched faces, like vinyl flipped to B-side, voiceless.
The gallery is on one side of the room, looking across to the jury on the other. Asase is at the back with a prison officer. She’s staring straight ahead in the direction of the barristers and judge in front of her. I’m looking at her, wanting to connect, but she won’t look at me. The hollow acoustics of the room match the emptiness inside me.
* * *
*
The white-haired barristers are MCs preparing for a sound-system clash, polishing their records until they gleam, sharpening their needles before they let their versions spin. The judge chatting about how things are gonna run. There’s a bored, impatient expression on Asase’s face. She’s sitting upright in the dock, her body still powerful. Nature must have built her that way, knowing she’d have to fight and run. Oraca, who is near the front of the public gallery, turns and stares at me. We smile. That’s when Asase finally looks at me, her eyes wavelengths of silence.
I nod. And I can see now that Asase was my friend because I didn’t want her as an enemy. I’d been in a prison of my own making.
Love her. Hate her. Love her. Hate her.
Right now, I hate her for what she did to Eustace. And yet. The nerves in my body twisting and turning like mistuned notes.
Eustace’s parents and Loreen are sitting in the front row. His mother is leaning against her husband’s shoulder. Eustace isn’t with them, can’t see him anywhere. I pray they don’t turn to look at me.
The barrister for the prosecution, Mr Lyons, stands up.
‘Your Honour, I would like to call the prosecution’s first witness, Mr Eustace Frankson.’
There’s whispering at the front of the public gallery and the usher takes a note from Loreen and gives it to Mr Lyons.
Mr Lyons speaks to the judge, says that he has a doctor’s note, Mr Frankson is unwell. They talk for a while and the Judge says the case will continue. ‘I’d like to call Mr Nathaniel Bailey to the witness stand,’ Mr Lyons says. People up front whispering. Probably wondering the same thing as me; whether Eustace is still recovering or just doesn’t want to testify against Asase.
The judge asks for silence.
Bongo Natty walks up to the stand wearing an African print shirt and matching tie, his locks piled into a red, gold and green knitted hat. He takes the Bible from the usher. Inhales a large breath, like a trumpeter about to blow his horn.
‘I swear by Jah Rastafari, Conquering Lion of Judah, that the evidence I give shall be the truth, the whole truth and nuth’n but the truth.’
The judge glances up from his papers, looks at the barrister and blinks several times.
Mr Lyons asks Bongo Natty to tell the court where he was on the night of 31 December 1979 and what he saw.
Bongo Natty looks around at the people in the public gallery, his jaw muscles flexed for fight or flight.
‘Mr Bailey, if you please,’ Mr Lyons says.
Bongo Natty clears his throat a couple of times. ‘It was snowing,’ he says. ‘The people was inside. I was at the table, with my crew. We were, yuh know, smoking, drinking, niceing up the place.’
‘Can you describe the layout for the court?’ Mr Lyons asks.
‘Yuh step inna the door at the side of the church on to a landing, a gallery where the set-up was. The table and everything. Metal stairs went down inna the Crypt. Asase and Eustace came up from the Crypt. They went past me, outside. She looked vehexx.’
‘Vehexx?’ Mr Lyons asks.
Someone in the gallery laughs.
‘Yes, angry,’ Bongo Natty says.
‘Do you mean vexed?’ Mr Lyons asks.
‘Yes. Swell up. Plenty people were upstairs. She had to shuub to get out. They didn’t shut the door behind them. Cold air was blowing in. I went to close it. Heard cussing and things. Looked out. My man – Eustace – was on the floor. Asase was holding a knife.’ Bongo Natty turns to the judge and raises his empty hands.
Cross-fading whispers from the front and back of the courtroom.
The palms of my hands are hot, sweaty. I wonder if it coulda been me. If Asase could have turned on me one day. I look at her but she’s looking down at her hands.
‘What did you do then?’ Mr Lyons asks.
‘I ran towards them,’ Bongo Natty says. ‘She likked concrete.’
‘I’m sorry? Licked concrete?’
Someone in the gallery shouts, ‘Running, iyah, running.’
The judge orders the man to be taken out.
Bongo Natty continues: ‘Yes, running fast. Hitting the pavement.’
‘Yes, yes, I see,’ Mr Lyons says. ‘Were there other people nearby?’
‘Yes, stepping ’pon the street, going towards the station.’
Mr Lyons asks Bongo Natty a few more questions about his relationship with Asase and Eustace. Then he calls Loreen, Eustace’s wife.
It’s stuffy with the smell of people’s warm bodies and breath. Mr Lyons blows his nose. His selector rummages in files, pulling out papers and giving them to him.
Loreen takes the Bible and makes an oath to God Almighty. She’s older than Eustace, in her late forties, tall, glow-dark coppery skin. Wearing a navy dress with a white collar, a short silver Ethiopian cross necklace. She stands with her chin out. Mr Lyons takes off his glasses, holds the silence like an MC. Puts his glasses back on, turns and looks at the jury while addressing Loreen.
‘This will be difficult. We’ll go at your pace. Can you tell us about your husband, Eustace Frankson?’
Loreen faces the jury. Their eyes flicker. She places her right hand on the cross at her throat. ‘He is a good father,’ she says. ‘Too soft with the children.’ Her voice is deep, slow and heavy. ‘He put so much into the record shop.’ She stops, tugs at the cross. ‘I won’t let him run that place any more.’
‘This is obviously upsetting for you,’ Mr Lyons says.
‘Is all right. I mus’ do this,’ she says. ‘Eustace gave too much time. Helping any and anybody who came off the street.’
‘Loreen, please tell the court what kind of help,’ Mr Lyons says.
‘The youth don’t have anything. Eustace let them stay in the shop. Gave them food. Money.’
Eustace’s mother lets out a muted wail. Her husband pulls her head to his chest and quietens her.
‘He always told the youth to walk away from trouble,’ Loreen says.
‘Were you aware of any relationship between your husband and the defendant?’ Mr Lyons asks.
‘Relationship?’ Loreen takes her hand off the cross. ‘Eustace doesn’t run up and down with other women. He’s a good husband. That woman was chasing him. She is slack!’
I stare at Asase. Her expression hardens, a below-surface burning.
Loreen slow-mo cuts her eyes in Asase’s direction. ‘Eustace is too trusting.’
Asase stares ahead. Her jaw twitches. Silence except for the rustling of the barristers’ gowns. And the sound of the defence barrister going through his files, like someone flicking through history’s dusty papers. Lost truths. Radioactive decay.
‘But he did go to late-night clubs like the Crypt?’ Mr Lyons asks.
‘Music is his business, his life,’ she says. She turns to the judge as if she’s speaking to him personally. Arms folded across her chest. ‘It nearly killed him!’
Wood-darkness closes in. Guilt, rage, grief and love explode inside me and I’m thinking of Moose and how Eustace almost died. I’m crying, and someone’s arm is around, the other arm covering my mouth with their hand, telling me to keep it down. It’s Junior, the young man who worked at Dub Steppaz.
He gives me a tissue and I’m wiping my eyes as Mr Lyons says he has no further questions.
Loreen is leaving the witness stand as someone starts shouting from the back of the courtroom, just behind me.
‘Tek me, Your Honour!’
I turn and see Hezekiah holding up his arms, his wrists locked together as if he’s cuffed.
‘This yah is my crime as a father. Me daughter innocent.’
He starts to run, darting between the bench where Asase is sitting, past the jury, the barristers’ and the solicitors. Asase is looking at him with disgust and turns her head away. The usher and clerk run towards him as he heads for the judge. They try to hold him back, but he’s pushing and shoving. They manage to wrestle him to the ground and a policeman cuffs him.
People in the gallery are calling out. Some are saying leave the old man alone; some are saying throw him in the dock with his daughter.
‘Order, order!’ shouts the judge.
The policeman takes Hezekiah out of court and the judge calls for a recess.
There are cracks in the air now; people poised like springs. Whatever Hezekiah was trying to do has backfired. Eustace’s friends are staring at me, kissing their teeth. There’s heat in my face and my throat is tightening. People in the gallery are huddling into groups, talking in loud voices. I leave the courtroom quick-time. Run down the corridors and out into daylight. Wanting to likk concrete, get as far away as I can from this place. From everyone.
I catch a taxi to the Dead Water area. Searching for sound imprints of Moose. Samples from the past, alive with the now. Entanglement. I’ll be OK if I can hear again that one gospel-swaying note that brings something of him back.
There are lights inside the old cottages, grey clouds rising from factories in the distance. I remember the rare-groove women in their floaty dresses swaying, Moose’s favourite song in my head. I sit on a bench on the towpath. I take his mahogany ring off my finger, hold it up to the light and look through it like a portal.
I stay that way for hours, watching the last of the summer light skimming the water, slipping further and further away into the tunnel.
* * *
*
Coulda pushed myself up with other people. Maybe Cynthia, who runs the community centre – a hall with a snooker table, some battered chairs and ripped cushions with foam spilling out. Or Georgia, a young mother with a two-year-old girl who lives in the flat next door. She’s always begging my company because she’s trapped in her yard day in, day out, no money to do anything. But I keep myself to myself. When Irving’s gone to work, I light up the flat with fiyah dub. Leave my body. Speak to the dead. Hover in their world. Try not to think about Asase and what I know. Afraid I might be called to the witness stand and break down under questioning.
Herbert calls on Saturday morning, says he’s coming round. Irving’s at the garage. It’s the day after the inquest into Moose’s death. Nile had tried to persuade me to go with him, but I didn’t. Couldn’t bear the thought of looking at the policemen flipping through notebooks, spinning their version of truth.
‘I need coffee,’ Herbert says as he walks in.
He’s wearing a black T-shirt and grey Farah trousers, his khaki messenger bag hanging on one shoulder. For once, his Afro isn’t shaped; it’s like an explosion of electrodes. The muscles round his jaw are tensed.
He follows me into the kitchen and sits down at the table, facing the small window where light and a late-summer breeze blows in, disturbing the stale smell of Irving’s tobacco smoke. I mix milk and coffee granules, pour water and stir anti-clockwise. Backwards spinning time.
‘Sit down, Yamaye,’ Herbert says. His voice is remote, restrained.
I put the mugs on the table, sit opposite him.
He clears his throat. The murmur of the radio comes from the front room.
‘Eight to two majority,’ he says. ‘Lawful killing by the police.’ His eyes are steady, rooted.
